Adjusted operating profit surged 39% to £50m as operating profit leapt from 9% to 13% year on year.

Stephen Daintith, the DMGT finance director, said the increase in profits and margin is due to a massive reshaping of its business in recent years.

Five years ago DMGT had eight printing plants, now it has just two; DMG comprised 15 businesses, now there are just four; and headcount has been slashed from 8,400 to 2,800.

Daintith said that the profit per employee was £9,000 five years ago; it now stands at £29,000.

"We are more focused, lean and efficient," he said.

Daintith pointed out that a large part of the headcount reduction was due to offloading regional newspaper business Northcliffe Media to Local World, the publisher run by David Montgomery.

DMGT made £7m in operating profits from its 38.7% stake in Local World in the six months to the end of March, up about £1m year on year.

This means that Local World's total operating profit was about £18m for the period.

DMG Media said that beyond its reporting period underlying ad revenues were up 10% in the seven weeks to 18 May, boosted by Easter trading. Circulation revenues were down 6% for the same period.

Overall DMGT, which has extensive business-to-business assets, performed strongly with total revenues up 6% on an underlying basis to £931m. Profit before tax grew 16% to £151m.

"We have delivered a good performance in the first half, reflecting the strength of our B2B companies and, within DMG Media, the resilience of the Mail businesses, the benefits of cost-saving initiatives and effective portfolio management," said the DMGT chief executive, Martin Morgan.

The solid financial results, coupled with investor delight a the prospects of returns from the flotation of Zoopla, fueled a 5.39% rise in DMGT's share price in early trading on Thursday to 879.5p.

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